Liquor Importer Settles Discrimination Suit

A beverage importer who popularized the German liqueur Jagermeister by using sexy women to promote it in bars and restaurants agreed to pay $2.6-million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit. Officials with the New York Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the deal with Sidney Frank Importing Co. of New Rochelle, N.Y., and a subsidiary during a news conference in Manhattan. The EEOC is looking for Sidney Frank employees nationwide who believe they were harassed, and it plans to divide the settlement money after all candidates have been identified. So far, women have come forward from seven states, including California. Two former “Jagerettes” appeared on behalf of the 100 or so women who have already claimed they were grabbed, groped and even licked by company President Sidney Frank, as well as by customers. Frank was not named personally as a defendant in the case, but he was accused in court papers of grabbing and kissing employees. Many of the women represented by the EEOC also said they were sent to bars and restaurants to promote Jagermeister but found that bar owners and patrons often expected more. The EEOC had sued the company in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on behalf of the workers, whose complaints date back to July 1993.